When legal luminary, Aare Afe Babalola, founded Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), his vision and mission for the institution was to produce a new generation of leaders who would make a difference in all areas of human endeavour. One of the ambassadors of excellence for the school is Mary Adeola Adeyemi, who has distinguished herself in every ramification.
When the young Mary was admitted to study Law in the then relatively young ABUAD in 2012, she probably would have been oblivious that the academic excellence inherent in her would sooner than later cause her to be celebrated across different continents of the world.
Not even Sigmund Freud, the progenitor of dreams and father of psychoanalysis, would have accurately predicted that the star in Mary would not only glow in Africa but also in faraway Oxford University, in the United Kingdom, where she has continued to distinguish herself as a world-class Ph.D student on account of her academic excellence.
As soon as Mary got admitted into ABUAD, ranked by Times Higher Education Impact Rankings Number 1 University in Nigeria for two consecutive years (2022 and 2023) and Number 221 in the world in 2023, the undaunted young lady with unflinching passion for youth empowerment and education immersed herself in the rigors and demands of the LL.B programme, at the end of which she scored several firsts.
Because of the way she applied herself to her studies, this clear-headed and level-headed young lady graduated with first class honours and was Best Graduating Student in the College of Law in 2017, in addition to carting away 15 other academic awards.
To confirm that her first class in ABUAD was not a fluke, she proceeded to the Nigerian Law School for the mandatory one-year B.L. programme, where she graduated with Second Class Upper Division in 2018 in an examination moderated by external examiners.
The star of excellence in her continued to shine brighter and brighter when, in 2020, she was selected as one of the top 10 Rhodes Scholarship finalists and the first lawyer from West Africa out of a pool of over 3,000 applicants.
In her bid to help humanity and leave the society better than she has met it, Mary has held several leadership positions, including but not limited to financial secretary of the ABUAD Students’ Representative Council, Chairperson of the Academic Committee of the Law Students’ Society, member of the ABUAD Alumni Constitution Review Committee and the Career Service and Curriculum Vitae Review Committee and, currently, the Public Relations Officer of Eternal Hearts Foundation as well as a registered volunteer with the Lagos State Volunteer Corps.
Mary has since been a most diligent member of staff of Banwo & Ighodalo, a top commercial law firm in Lagos where she is regarded as a valuable member of the firm’s energy team.
Although the frontline law firm has provided her with a viable career path into a luxuriant future, but because she has been bitten by the bug of academic excellence, she sought and got admission to pursue her LL.M in University of Cambridge, where admission is not only tight and stiff but extremely very competitive.
To be offered admission into University of Cambridge, a Collegiate Research University in Cambridge, United Kingdom, which was founded in 1209 and granted a Royal Charter by King Henry III in 1231, is a rare privilege because competition is very keen.
However for some inexplicable reasons, but probably because providence has something better in stock for the aspiring academic, Mary did not take advantage of her admission to pursue the LL.M programme in Energy Law in Cambridge, the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s fourth-oldest surviving university.
The university has educated many notable alumni, including eminent mathematicians, scientists, politicians, lawyers, philosophers, writers, actors, monarchs and other heads of state. As of October 2019, 120 Nobel laureates, 11 Fields medalists, 7 Turing Award winners and 14 British Prime Ministers have been affiliated with Cambridge as students, alumni, faculty or research staff. University alumni have won 194 Olympic medals.
Fortune, however, smiled on Mary Adeyemo when, less than a year after she politely declined the offer of an LL.M programme in Cambridge, she was offered a direct admission to pursue her Ph.D in the famous University of Oxford, without going through the LL.M programme.
Generally, any student pursuing a Ph.D is expected to undergo a course leading to LL.M with a Ph.D Grade before proceeding to Ph.D. However, in the instant case, Mary Adeyemo, who obtained first class degree in Law from ABUAD, has been offered direct admission to pursue her Ph.D at the University of Oxford without going through the LL.M programme.
In arriving at this decision to offer Mary Adeyemo a direct admission for her Ph.D, Oxford University reviewed and relied on the quality of the content of ABUAD’s Law Programme and her transcript. This feat follows a series of national and international achievements attained by the ABUAD in its 13 years of existence, including:
The 2018 Finals Bar Examination of the Nigerian Law School among 6,500 Law graduates from all over the country where ABUAD law graduates recorded: 100% pass rate, 12 First Class, Ekpo Naomi Uwem from ABUAD, emerged the Overall Best Student with 13 different prizes, while ABUAD graduates, in all, won 24 out of the available 36 prizes.
Still hoisting ABUAD’s flag of excellence beyond Nigeria’s geographical borders, Mary Adeyemo recently received the highly coveted and distinguished Vice Chancellor’s Award on a highly commended Student Champion 2022 from the Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford.
Within seven months of her resumption at the University as a Ph. D student, her disposition to excellence singled her out of over 25,000 students and staff of the university making her the first Nigerian in the history of the university to clinch this award.
Mary also bagged the Oxford University Student Union Awards for Increasing Access. This is in recognition of her work for making significant contributions to access and outreach work at the University of Oxford and making the University a more inclusive place to study through her not-for-profit organization, CareerCarrierz.
CareerCarrierz continues to provide students with advice, mentorship, and guidance on how to access international opportunities for study and employment at no cost.
The team which she heads has helped many students through their post-graduate study applications rake in tens of thousands of pounds. Her latest partnership is with the University of Stanford through the Knight Hennessy Scholarship Admissions team, where students were offered a free information session on how to win the competitive scholarship.
Mary Adeyemo’s altruistic inclinations follow her everywhere she goes. For example, as far back as 2020, she instituted two Academic Prizes in ABUAD, The Mary Adeyemo’s Prize for the Overall Best Graduating Student in the College of Law, and The Adewale Adeyemo Memorial Prize Best Graduating Student in Health Law.
This is particularly heart-warming bearing in mind that it is happening in a clime where people don’t believe in giving unlike the practice in some more civilized climes where universities benefit from Philanthropists and public-spirited individuals by way of donations, grants, gifts and endowment of professorial chairs.
With these prizes, she has demonstrated that she has imbibed from Aare Afe Babalola’s philosophy of philanthropy and the willingness to always give. She has also keyed into his philosophy that it is not only when someone is fabulously rich that he/she can help and raise other people.
A young lady who has already been bitten by the bug of philanthropy, Mary Adeyemo decided to invest the 10,000 Pound Sterling Non-full Funding Bursary offered her by Oxford University to “…support other (ABUAD) students who may be having financial constraints in pursuing further (postgraduate) education”.
Mary’s exploits have continued to prove that she has remained true to the ABUAD culture of excellence while she is most certainly a source of pride to all its stakeholders. No doubt, her recent accomplishments are only a few of the thousands to come.
